When she and her husband George had five kids, she stayed at home in Delta to take care of them — and many of the neighbourhood kids, too.

When she volunteered to help out during Rick Hansen’s Man in Motion tour in the 1980s, she worked behind the scenes in the Vancouver office, sending mail, counting money, running errands.

When asked how she felt after carrying the “baton” — a silver medal — for 250 metres in the Chilliwack portion of the 25th Anniversary Rick Hansen Relay on Sunday, she just said, “I was kind of pooped.”

For their contributions to health and sport, making their communities more accessible, overcoming challenges, or removing barriers for people with disabilities, approximately 7,000 Canadians were chosen as medal-bearers by relay organizers. Rohla among them.

But “don’t make me into an angel,” she said.

Known as “Nana” to most, Rohla was born in Vancouver in 1928. Her five kids — Pat, 57, James, 53, Marie, 51, Marjie, 49, and Ken, 48 — were all athletic, winning soccer tournaments here and provincial basketball championships there. With five kids, doing volunteer work at their schools, and having “half the neighbourhood over once a week,” she didn’t need more exercise herself, Pat said. But “she was always really supportive of healthy lifestyles.”

That support was extended to family and friends, among them Rick Hansen.

Before he was the Man in Motion, Hansen would come by her house on 80th Avenue in Delta. Rohla’s husband would sometimes make little adjustments to his wheelchair. And, during the summer of 1980, Rohla invited Hansen to the family cabin on Green Lake to spend time with her son’s friend, Peter Brookes.

Brookes had gone to North Delta secondary school with Pat and they became best friends. In 1979, at 24, they were passengers in a car that flipped over in a ditch. Brookes hit his head on the dashboard, breaking his back and becoming paralyzed from the chest down, retaining only the use of his arms. He had been a soccer player, a water-skier, gregarious, charming and handsome. The crash was “just devastating,” Rohla said.

He spent his long recovery and rehabilitation at the GF Strong Rehabilitation Centre in Vancouver. It was there, in 1980, that he met Hansen, who had lost the use of his legs in a truck accident in 1973. That summer, Brookes, the Rohlas and Hansen went up to the lake.

“Rick really helped Peter that week, it was amazing,” Rohla said. “It was wonderful. We just let the two of them go.”

Not only did Hansen give some counselling and advice to Brookes, he even got him swimming.

“I heard two wheelchairs down on the wharf,” Rohla said. “I wasn’t going to look.”

A silence. They went into the water. “Then all I heard was laughter.”

Rohla still has a knack for bringing people together.

“I was instantly struck with what a warm, loving family and home she had created,” Hansen said of her in an email. “Doris is a very special woman who cares deeply about others. She made me feel instantly at home and part of the group. I was honoured she would choose our Man in Motion tour to place her precious volunteer time.”

“I guess I just showed I really liked Rick ... I loved him for what he did for someone I loved. I think everybody loves him, they can’t help it.”

And people are drawn to Rohla, too. Sharp as a tack, she knows everyone and their kids, their names and their favourite colours. “They love being around her. She’s magnetic like that,” said her son Pat, who was also a medal-bearer in the relay.

“One thing she understands and is attracted to is people with a kind heart. When Rick did that for Peter it was an instant bond.”

Rohla’s time is more precious these days. She recently had six weeks of radiation treatment, which ended just four days before the relay in Chilliwack. “I was worried. I didn’t have to walk that far, but you’re not supposed to be out in the sun. But I made it,” she said. “I had something pushing me that day. I guess it was Rick.”

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